Frustrated by government decisions based on political expediency rather than community health and well-being, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, United Way of Los Angeles, the USC School of Social Work and the Advancement Project partnered to create Healthy City. Healthy City (HC) seeks to foster data-driven planning, where public health decisions are based on evidence. To this end, Healthy City has four primary scopes of work.
First, HC maintains a public Web site which serves information and referral professionals, policy-makers and researchers in providing better community and health outcomes for low-income and under-served families. With this Web site, caseworkers and health professionals can quickly look up health services based on the distance from the patient’s or client’s residence or place of employment. Detailed service information, such as client eligibility, languages spoken, application procedures, and more, are listed. Health researchers can quickly retrieve vital statistics by ZIP Code, and, for example, view concentrations of areas with proportionally low birth weights, or areas with high numbers of homicides.
Second, HC provides Web assistance to local health organizations that vary in size from small community non-profits to large government departments and philanthropic institutions. Notably, the organization has built Web sites for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH) and First5 Los Angeles. The former site allows DMH staff to track resources in the department geographically, while the latter allows First5 to track grants to health organizations, map out areas being served by these grants, and utilize available demographic and health data to inform their strategic planning.
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| Healthy City's website allows users to create maps according to their specific needs |
Third, HC provides direct research assistance to local health organizations. HC provided maps and statistics to the Mayor’s office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development as it investigates the most effective measures to reduce gang violence in Los Angeles. For the Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation, HC created an early child need index, based on factors such as proportion of teen births and child care spaces available to assist in identifying high-need areas that could be candidates for a new Educare child care center in California.
Finally, HC partners with local community-based organizations to conduct community-engaged mapping exercises designed to draw out a community’s knowledge in ways that could be used to advocate for its health objectives. For example, the organization has worked with the Los Angeles Urban League to discern areas with public safety issues in their immediate neighborhood. HC produced wall-sized maps and moderated a discussion where residents could demarcate where they felt unsafe, as well as those built-environment issues (bad lighting, graffiti, excessive garbage, etc.) that might contribute to unsafe feelings in those areas.
Currently, HC is assisting the California Endowment in efforts to monitor its statewide, health-related giving, and hopes to continue to expand the HealthyCity.org Web site to a statewide platform. If you have any questions or comments about Healthy City, please feel free to contact us at www.healthycity.org.
Chris Ringewald, Senior Research Analyst, chris@healthycity.org